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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Creationist Thinking about Spontaneous Generation

It's not surprising to discover that creationists are opposed to the idea that life began by purely natural processes. After all, that's at the heart of the dispute between creationists and scientists.

One of the rhetorical tricks used by creationists is to refer to the origin of life as "spontaneous generation." Why is this a trick? Because the term is most commonly associated with an old-fashioned view of spontaneous generation as a process that occurs regularly when new living things spring into existence. The idea was that the maggots on rotting meat arose spontaneously, for example, without the need for pre-existing life.

This notion was put to rest once-and-for-all by nineteenth century scientists; notably, Louis Pasteur. We all know that spontaneous generation of this sort doesn't happen. The creationists take advantage of this when they talk about abiogenesies—the origin of life. If they can confuse their audience by associating abiogenesis with discredited spontaneous generation, then that's a good thing, as far as they are concerned. They know what they're doing and that's what makes it despicable.

Accidental origin of life is the basic thesis of origin of life researchers. Life all just somehow sort of happened one day, billions of years ago, under the right conditions – which we may be able to recreate. But there is a constant, ongoing dispute about just what those conditions were.

Here is the problem I have always had with accidental origin of life: It amounts to spontaneous generation. However, banishing the doctrine of spontaneous generation played a key role in modern medicine’s success. If we assume that life forms (for medical purposes, we focus on pathogens) cannot start spontaneously, then they must have been introduced. Hence, we can develop procedures for a sterile operating room or lab.

If life can be spontaneously generated, why isn’t it happening now? Conditions for life today are probably as good as they have ever been, and maybe better. For over 500 million years they have obviously been good for complex life forms, and for billions of years they have been good for simple ones.

You can win a creationist book for the best response to her question.

Well, the results are in and the prize goes to StephenB. Here's part of his response. Presumably, this is the best argument the IDiots have to offer on what science is all about.

The accidental origin of life idea hurts science because it militates against the vital principle of causation, the rational and indispensible standard on which science is based. The first question any researcher asks is this: “How did it happen? or—What caused it? Yet, the concept of spontaneous generation popularizes the idea that physical events can occur without causes—that there need not be a “how”—that they can “just happen.”

Consider the following proposition: Streets don’t just “get wet.” Using the scientific and philosophical principle of causation, we understand that something had to cause the streets to get wet. So, we say that if the streets are wet, then it must be raining, or else someone turned on a fire hydrant, or we look for some other reason. But if, as Darwinists or postmodern cosmologists claim, physical events do not always need causes or necessary conditions, that is, if something really can come from nothing, then streets can indeed just get wet. With this mind set, science is severely compromised. If, indeed, something can appear spontaneously or without a cause, why cannot it happen again somewhere else in some other situation?

In keeping with that point, if one thing can “just happen,” then why cannot anything just happen? Why not everything? Under these circumstances, how could the scientist know which things were caused and which ones were not? Science would become an intellectual madhouse where the impossible is affirmed with confidence and the obvious is dismissed with disdain, which, come to think of it, is not a bad description of Darwinst epistemology. For Darwinists, and for postmodern cosmologists, a universe can pop into existence, life can come from non-life, and, yes, streets could, in principle, just “get wet.” Science cannot survive this irrational mind set indefinitely.

Are there any evolutionists out there who believe that the first living cell just "poofed" into existence without any cause or antecedents? If you believe this then please post a comment below.

If nobody admits to holding such a belief, then how do we account for the fact that the IDiots misunderstand and misrepresent science?

I also wonder why life only formed once. Is it such an improbable event? Could it only occur in conditions no longer in existence? Or does it continue to occur from time to time, deep in some thermal vent somewhere?

The question of life forming only once is interesting as well. I would suspect that it has formed more than once, perhaps even on earth, but much more likely on other planets.

Seems it could be hard now for new life to form since there are many complex life forms in every niche. Could a new process leading to life actually compete or persist long enough without being consumed to extinction?

I'm no expert but my understanding is that because the world is now populated by hungry organisms, any environment which begins to form the rich organic chemical precursors to life gets filled with existing life which feeds on this 'soup'. There may have been multiple independent sources of life at one point but with so many predatory organisms, that window may be closed.

The accidental origin of life idea hurts science because it militates against the vital principle of causation, the rational and indispensible standard on which science is based. The first question any researcher asks is this: “How did it happen? or—What caused it? Yet, the concept of spontaneous generation popularizes the idea that physical events can occur without causes—that there need not be a “how”—that they can “just happen.”

I always get a laugh when clowns like Mr. StephenB make statements like this. I have a flash for Mr. StephenB. Radioactive decay of unstable nuclii is a perfect example of a process that has no cause. One can make no prediction as to when any particular unstable nucleus will decay because the process is entirely random. One can only state the probability that it will decay within a given time period, based on observations of the half life of a large number of such nuclii.

I am in basic agreement with Tyro on additional origins of life. You could not have a build-up of precursor molecules today which resembled that on the early earth, because existing life forms would get there first, and they have a tremendous headstart. It's a "winner takes all" argument.

A first-cause argument from Denyse O'Leary? That's right Denyse, the only way to stop that regress is to insert your sky fairy, nevermind that there are plausible attempts to explain it without the supernatural. One massive argument from personal incredulity/ignorance (the former in the case of CW and latter in the case of O'leary?)

Ugh, once a cretin, always a cretin.Only shame is that somehow this one is able to remain alive.Bit like a nasty virus, creating a downward spiral into intellectual oblivion. But maybe it's better just to ignore the IDiots totally, as they contribute nothing any discourse?

What I wonder most is, that creationists actually believe in spontanious generation "per ce" :

IF it is jus as they say and Pasteur's test show that it will not happen. And it is not just a "mechanistic limitation". Then God did not create them either. If there is spontanious generation ex. rats from clothes, is'nt that possible a creation process?

If it is happening, then we have observed a phenomena, and in it can be many possible theories how it happen. End is testing. And if it is not happening, then it limit all possible theories. Everything that says "it poofed" are equally wrong.

So I have wondered how it is a bigger problem to generate one "simple" life form, then many baramines, which are more complex. Old fashioned Creationists claim is that rhinos, cats and other stuff "poofed".

So "in most creationistic way in looking it" there is actually two models. One in which is one, quite small, poof. (naturalistic) And one, where is many "extremely complex" (this information if complexicity is off course from "C -man") poofs.

If poofs did not happen and we can not do the mainpart of science and test it somwhow too, is'nt there Occams Razor just for the cases like this?

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

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Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.